


Hope Is A Love That Never Dies, Just Learns

by Syakuya of a Depth (SylviaoftheDepths)



Series: Walkin' In Time [2]
Category: The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Boys In Love, Exes, Falling In Love, Feelings Realization, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Heartbreak, Idiots in Love, Love, Love Triangles, M/M, Past SunNew, Past... I don't know what to call this ship. HakHoon? Youngyeon?, Professor!Lee Sangyeon, Professor!Moon Taeil, Slow To Update, exes who are still stupidly in love with each other, lingering feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25665757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylviaoftheDepths/pseuds/Syakuya%20of%20a%20Depth
Summary: “To all my loved ones, my thoughts are running, but time seems to be walking. Round and around my mind spins, yearning to be with you again. I want to run back to the time we were together. Last goodbyes chase first hellos much like the minute hand chases the hour hand. We will meet again, I am sure, but in the meantime, I guess I will be walking in time.”- Walkin' In Time, The BoyzSunwoo will never stop loving Chanhee. But that doesn't mean he can't learn to love anyone else either.
Relationships: Choi Chanhee | New/Kim Sunwoo, Choi Chanhee | New/Kim Younghoon/Lee Jaehyun | Hyunjae/Lee Juyeon, Ju Haknyeon/Kim Sunwoo, Ju Haknyeon/Kim Younghoon
Series: Walkin' In Time [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1821505
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14
Collections: Take a lyric leave a lyric, The Alphabet Challenge





	1. Week 6

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [a heart of dead hope](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24994468) by [prkjws](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prkjws/pseuds/prkjws). 
  * In response to a prompt by [TheRainRogue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRainRogue/pseuds/TheRainRogue) in the [TheAlphabetChallenge](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TheAlphabetChallenge) collection. 
  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [TakeALyricLeaveALyric](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TakeALyricLeaveALyric) collection. 



> Okay, so I wasn't planning on posting this so soon, because I wanted it to be a one shot and it's not done yet, but my recent effort to do something brave seems to have gone down the drain, so I decided to post this instead, as my brave moment. It's been a long time since I requested to make a story from that beautiful story, a heart dead of hope by prkjws (I don't know how to make links here, someone please teach me!), please go read that first before you come here, it's so pretty and so sad! And since this was meant to be a one shot, it might read weird, I'm sorry about that, I might take it down when it's done and put it up again as a full one shot, or maybe I'll just post a different version, I'm not sure yet.
> 
> (Also, please take note, this has a Slow To Update tag, I don't have a regular posting schedule planned for this since I'm only really posting this on a whim right now, it might take a long while to update again, I'm so sorry, I just needed the temporary mood booster.)
> 
> **Prompt:**
> 
> Loona - See Saw 
> 
> Which is right, I see or saw you? / Which is right, I love or loved you?
> 
>  **Prompt**  
>  [ L ]
> 
> Possible words;  
> lemon, lesson, listen,  
> likely, life, lemonade,  
> etc.

It’s Friday.

Chanhee doesn’t text..

It should be a good thing, Sunwoo knows. They talked about this on Saturday. Chanhee promised. He _promised_.

… Not to text again. He promised not to text again.

So why is Sunwoo waiting for a text? In the dark of his room staring at the searing light of his phone, head under the covers like it usually never is, like those rare moments Chanhee would find him and gently lift the covers off his head, tuck them around his shoulders, snuggle in close from over the covers with that beautiful, small smile upon his lips, bright purple hair fluffed around his angelic face as if framing it in all its splendor, and ask if Sunwoo wanted to talk about it.

… Like those memories Sunwoo shouldn’t be remembering. The ones that bring tears to his eyes, already bleary from staring at his phone for too long, waiting for a text that will never come.

Because Chanhee promised.

Because they’re broken up.

Because Sunwoo would rather see him happy in the arms of others than sad in his own arms. More than anything, he loves Chanhee enough to give him up. And Chanhee loves himself enough to know to step away. Even if he may still love Sunwoo the way Sunwoo still loves him.

It’s better this way. That’s what they decided.

That’s what Sunwoo _knows_. It’s better this way.

Even if his heart is still breaking the longer he stares at his too-bright phone screen from under the covers that are both too hot and hot cold for him to handle, tears swimming in his faulty night vision, spreading the light of his phone farther than it actually reaches, wavy and uneven like the state of his heart as exhaustion eventually takes over, long enough later that he doesn’t notice his phone screen turning black as he falls into a restless sleep.


	2. Week 7

On Sunday, Sunwoo gets an email from his Music Composition minor professor, Moon Taeil. It’s the start of the legendary first project, for both the Music Composition majors and minors. Minors have it easier than majors, because for minors it’s-

 _“... only two voices_ and _it’s assigned. Are they fucking underestimating minors?”_

_“You’re the one who chose to take Music Composition as a minor, Sunwoo. The general assumption with minors is that they’re extra little add-ons to your major. So yeah, minors aren’t going to get the same workload as majors.”_

_A snort, and then a pause. “If only I could use your voice, hyung.”_

We could sing together, _goes unspoken, lingering in the air between them, fond and forlorn, only broken by a playful laugh._

_“What makes you think I would lend you my voice just like that, you big rascal?”_

Sunwoo stares blankly down at the email, at the name of his assigned partner from Professor Lee Sangyeon’s vocal class.

It’s so hot under the covers and still he’s shivering.

~

Monday morning, alone in his corner of the Music Composition 1 for Minors lecture room, Sunwoo doesn’t know what to expect. He’s got on a black denim jacket over a camo shirt and black ripped jeans, like nothing is wrong, like it’s a normal day, so completely indistinguishable from before, when Sunwoo actually made an effort to dress up for this class because he liked it and Chanhee liked when he made an effort. The faded orange hair under his hood tells a different story, however, Sunwoo knows- is mussed, just like his eyes have bags under the shadow the hood casts over his face and his lips are chapped, like it doesn’t even register to swipe his tongue over them.

It really doesn’t.

 _“Those are Angelina Jolie’s lips,”_ Chanhee would say, _“you have to take care of them.”_

Sunwoo can’t go a day without thinking about him.

It’s been six weeks already. The first Friday Chanhee texted Sunwoo drunk was an accident. It was the week of their breakup, it was understandable. Chanhee liked to drink all his sorrows and frustrations away, for the sole reason that he wasn’t a good drinker- he’d always end up drunk and passed out, happily forgetting whatever his stresses were. Sunwoo knew that. Sunwoo was always the one who gently warned him to stop- gently, because Chanhee had snapped at him once, drunk, for his more straightforward attempts, berating him from trying to take his momentary happiness away from him. It hadn’t been a happy episode and the both of them could barely last the week before crawling to each other’s arms in tears, promises to never repeat the same mistakes on their lips.

So Sunwoo was expecting that. Maybe not that he would get a text asking him to pick him up, as if nothing was wrong, but the black-out drunkenness. The black-out drunkenness Sunwoo could understand. No, understand is the wrong word, he hated it when Chanhee drank. _Hates_ it. The thought of it, at least. He’s allowed that much, still. Instead, it’s something that had him accepting, two seconds into staring down at the foreign text from his newly broken up with boyfriend that yeah, this is something that Chanhee would do.

The second was an unlucky lucky coincidence. Had Sunwoo staring down at his phone again, at the number he couldn’t bear to block, at the conversations he found himself too scared to scroll up to, but even more terrified to lose, at Chanhee asking him, _“Where are you, Sunwoo? How come you aren’t here to take me home?”_ Had him wondering what kind of cruel joke this was.

Had him wondering if some higher being had heard his wish that he actually didn’t want to not be in Chanhee’s life and decided to grant it.

By the third Friday, it was a pattern. It was Sunwoo staring down at his phone in nervous anticipation, wondering if the text would come again. It was the text actually coming again. It was Sunwoo rushing to the door before his mind even registered the motion.

It was staring down at Chanhee’s drunken face, now pink-purple hair plastered across it, so full of love for him and wondering what the hell he was doing.

And this is the start of the seventh week, after Chanhee had showed up at his door, after they had talked about it the following day, after last week, when Sunwoo waited and Chanhee really didn’t send the text.

Because he was keeping his promise.

And Sunwoo should honor that. Sunwoo should honor-

“- academic integrity, alright kids? Don’t go taking any songs from the Internet, believe me, we’ll notice. And no pushing off responsibility to your partners. My class, you’re here only to use your voice. Professor Taeil’s class, you guys are only here to compose your song. Other than the few of you who applied to use your voice as the other required voice because my class is a bit smaller than yours. You kids, thank you for taking on an extra workload. It’s alright for you to give my kids a little more work in your case.”

There are a few scattered chuckles. Sunwoo’s gaze is fixed firmly down on his papers, fierce and unseeing.

He’d applied to use his voice.

It wasn’t really out of any charity or whatever bullshit Professor Lee was probably thinking. He’d just wanted to show off.

To Chanhee.

To his boyfriend, to see him wrinkle his nose and call him a show-off. To later take earbuds out of his ears when he’s fallen asleep and find Sunwoo’s song playing on repeat, Sunwoo’s voice forever echoing in his ears.

He’d wanted it to be their secret. For Chanhee to pretend he didn’t like it and for Sunwoo to pretend Chanhee didn’t play it at least once everyday.

And now Chanhee would never hear it.

Because he kept his promise.

Because he didn’t text.

Friday had passed them by and Chanhee didn’t text. He really didn’t text him.

Even though Sunwoo had been waiting. Even though it was Sunwoo who told him to stop, week five.

Week Five Sunwoo must not have known it would hurt like this. Week Five Sunwoo wouldn’t have known that the feeling of not getting a text and not finding a drunk, crying Chanhee by the door would feel equally as terrible as not getting a text and finding a drunk, crying Chanhee by the door. No, that’s a lie. A crying Chanhee is the worst experience Sunwoo could ever go through, week five or not. Anything is better than a crying Chanhee.

But it’s not like no Chanhee at all is a much better place to be.

“Alright, we’ll end class here.” Professor Moon says. “We’d like for you to take the remaining time to meet up with your partner or partners, but, well. Nothing’s stopping you from leaving either. Do what you will!”

Partner? Sunwoo doesn’t even remember his partner’s name. He remembers seeing the email, he remembers remembering Chanhee, he remembers… nothing else.

He should probably leave. No point in making a fool out of himself trying to find his partner in this mess. He’ll try later, another day, maybe when Chanhee’s chidings aren’t ringing in the back of his head, chimes in the wind, strings plucked in a melody, the twitter of the day to the morning Sun, because Chanhee is musical when he’s playful, musical when he’s angry, musical when he’s upset.

Because Chanhee is music and Sunwoo is the one who learned how to put all his notes in place.

And now Sunwoo has no energy to arrange any notes for anyone else, class project or not, joint project or not, because Chanhee was all the music Sunwoo needed in life and Chanhee wasn’t his anymore-

“Kim Sunwoo?” A hesitant voice asks. It’s- not brash, but not soft. It’s not like his classmates’, but it’s not like Chanhee’s either. Not completely. It isn’t musical. It’s lyrical. Speaks volumes in hesitant tones, whereas Chanhee spills emotion into the soul with the simple parting of his pink lips. Sunwoo freezes.

“Yeah.” He says. Grunts. Doesn’t turn. He can’t turn, for some reason. Something will happen if he turns. He doesn’t know what. But something will.

He doesn’t know if he wants that something to happen.

“Okay,” the voice says, in that same hesitant tone. He must be wondering why Sunwoo isn’t turning around. _Sunwoo_ is wondering why he isn’t turning around. He has no answers for this boy, no words at all. He wants the boy to go away. He wants to think of Chanhee in peace. He wants to be free of thinking about Chanhee all the time.

He doesn’t know if he wants whatever that something is to happen.

There’s a lengthy pause between them, somehow not filled by the background chatter of the rest of the joint class, actually meeting up with their partners, because Professor Moon and Professor Lee are two people who are loved by their students everywhere. Sunwoo can’t find any of that love in him as he contemplates if he should just up and leave, rude to his partner or not. His partner is probably baffled by his behavior. Sunwoo’s being rude to him already. Leaving probably wouldn’t be too off the mark of the impression he’s giving him, right now.

“I’m Ju Haknyeon.” His partner says instead. Sunwoo is rooted in place. His name is Ju Haknyeon. He has a _name_ now. If Sunwoo just turns around, he’ll have a face too, a body to give figure to that disembodied, lyrical voice, a name to assign to someone who speaks so much without saying much of a word.

If he turns around, that something will happen.

Sunwoo stays. It’s Ju Haknyeon who comes around to face him.

Ju Haknyeon is a boy who slams his hands down at the corners of Sunwoo’s little gray table, casually disregarding the noise it makes, loud smack and rattling, feeble makeshift desk and all, and the startle it gives to their nearby classmates, who all move slightly farther away with pointed whispers. Ju Haknyeon is a boy with auburn hair, likely recently dyed and very well maintained, normal boyish dark shirt and jeans, and a navy blue high school varsity jacket. Ju Haknyeon is a boy who forcibly meets Sunwoo’s gaze and stares him down with surprising strength, for someone whose face looks as soft and young and boyish as it does.

“I’ll be looking forward to working with you this semester.” He says, voice booming in Sunwoo’s ears, past the safety of his drawn black hood, past Chanhee’s voice in the recesses of his head where he plays it over and over, like he can’t live without it.

Sunwoo is taken by the force of his bright smile, unapologetically large as the Sun.

~

It’s Wednesday. Sunwoo is staring down at his phone.

It’s deja vu, almost, weird, because it’s deja vu and jamais vu. It’s Sunwoo staring down at his phone, at a number, and it’s Sunwoo staring down at Ju Haknyeon’s number on a Wednesday, at the two forceful good nights and the one forceful good morning and the hundreds of bright smiley faces interspersed between.

It’s Sunwoo wondering if he should text Ju Haknyeon instead. Because the Sun has long since been up and Haknyeon has not yet texted him the customary good morning that Sunwoo has come to expect, after his insistence on texting Sunwoo good morning and good night ever since he bullied his phone number out of him, that day.

It’s deja vu, a once that was a chance, a twice that was a coincidence. It’s jamais vu, no third that made a pattern.

Sunwoo doesn't text. He doesn't want to make another pattern.

Haknyeon doesn't contact him at all, that day.

~

The next day, Sunwoo wonders if Haknyeon was testing him, the day before. See if he would take the initiative to text if Haknyeon didn’t.

He wakes up to _Good Morning!_ One exclamation mark, two smiley faces, even capitalization. It’s a bit off. There are no rainbows and sparkles and sunshine bursting from his phone screen at way too early in the day. Early, because Chanhee preferred getting his classes over with earlier so he would have the rest of the day to himself. Sunwoo had learned to drag himself out of bed for him, so he could meet Chanhee later in the day, always ready with some kind of snack or drink for Sunwoo and warm, teasing words of congratulations on his lips. Sunwoo would mutter. Sunwoo would kiss him senseless in thanks when they were alone.

Sunwoo would love seeing his shy smile, hearing his delighted laughter.

Haknyeon’s text, with it’s one exclamation, two smileys, normal capitals, looks to Sunwoo like he feels right now, dull ache growing tender in his veins, thrumming sweet, sweet pain that won’t bring tears to his eyes, only a sad smile to his lips.

_“Angelina Jolie doesn’t let her lips turn down like that, Kim Sunwoo. I know it’s sunny, stop grumbling. Here, take this coffee and come with hyung to the shade.”_

For the first time, Sunwoo sends Haknyeon a _‘Morning._ back.

~

Friday is all deja vu.

Friday is him trudging through his classes, is the weight of his phone hanging heavy in his pocket, burning hot through his jeans, is the steadfast determination not to keep it obsessively in hand that keeps his attention on it all day long.

Friday is the covers over his head, him shivering, tugging the sheets desperately even though his sleepwear is sticking to him in a way that makes him feel ugly, clutching his phone too tight, waiting, waiting, waiting.

It’s Friday.

Chanhee doesn’t text.

~

Saturday is his phone vibrating vigorously in his hand, waking him, trapped in sweat-through pajamas and restrictive blankets.

He fumbles with the phone even as his eyes slide shut once more, fading back to sleep and opening it on the fumes of a fierce battle between fire and rain doused hours ago.

Rainbows and sparkles and sunshine burst from his phone screen, prying his eyes awake, blasting through the fog clouding his weak breath. There is a good morning and good night Sunwoo never saw yesterday, ignoring Haknyeon as Hakyeon had ignored him on Wednesday, and a new good morning is filling his screen right now, complete with all the smiley faces Sunwoo can imagine Haknyeon’s face emulating at the exact moment he sends them.

Sunwoo is taken by the blinding force of an unapologetic Sun.


End file.
